All the plot lines unfolded Tuesday in the first day of home run
king Barry Bonds’ perjury trial. In opening statements, prosecutors
depicted Bonds as a scheming liar who tried to protect his legacy
when he committed perjury by telling a federal grand jury in
December 2003 that he did not take steroids.
SAN FRANCISCO
All the plot lines unfolded Tuesday in the first day of home run king Barry Bonds’ perjury trial.
In opening statements, prosecutors depicted Bonds as a scheming liar who tried to protect his legacy when he committed perjury by telling a federal grand jury in December 2003 that he did not take steroids.
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And Bonds’ lawyer defended his client’s innocence, although he may not have done Bonds’ baseball legacy any favors. He told the jury Bonds’ oft-repeated storyline — that the former Giants superstar used substances later identified as performance enhancing drugs, but had no idea when he testified that what he’d been given by personal trainer Greg Anderson had in fact been newfangled steroids.
“He told the truth,” Allen Ruby, Bonds’ lawyer, assured jurors.
Then the plot thickened. Anderson, accused of supplying Bonds with steroids, appeared for a few fleeting moments outside the presence of the jury, then went to prison once again to protect his childhood friend. A judge held him in contempt for refusing to testify during the trial, saying he was thwarting the search for truth.
And after the burly trainer was escorted from the San Francisco courtroom by U.S. Marshals, he was replaced on the witness stand by Bonds’ chief nemesis and the government’s first witness, federal agent Jeff Novitzky, the architect of the case that exposed the Balco steroids scandal.
That was day one in the case against Bonds, charged with four counts of perjury and one count of obstructing justice for lying to a federal grand jury more than seven years ago about using performance enhancing drugs as he chased baseball’s home run records.
Wednesday morning, Novitzky will return to the witness stand to be further cross-examined by Ruby, who is trying to raise doubts about the agent’s motives and methods in pursuit of Bonds. He will be followed by another key government witness assailed by Ruby, Steve Hoskins, an estranged former business associate of Bonds who tape recorded a conversation with Anderson in 2003 in the Giants locker room in which the trainer appears to discuss injecting the ballplayer with steroids.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Parrella insisted in opening statements that such witnesses will prove Bonds lied under oath. He walked jurors through the Balco saga, which linked a Peninsula laboratory to providing steroids to dozens of elite athletes, including Bonds.
Parrella sometimes crossed the line with U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, but he got his shots in at Bonds, referring to him, Anderson and Balco mastermind Victor Conte as “the Three Musketeers of Balco.” He also called Bonds’ insistence that he did not know he was getting steroids from Anderson “utterly ridiculous and unbelievable.”
The prosecutor told jurors Bonds had an easy path when he was called to testify — with immunity — before the grand jury that was probing Balco. “All he had to do was tell the truth,” Parrella told the jury. “That’s all. But he couldn’t do it and the evidence will show he planned not to do it.” Ruby, however, mocked the government’s case, calling its witness list as mostly a compilation of people with a grudge against Bonds who can provide no irrefutable evidence that he knew he was taking steroids or lied under oath to the grand jury. In fact, Ruby quickly tried to dispense with the argument that Bonds became a bulging home run hitter by taking steroids, saying he decided in 1998 to build his body with training to prolong his career as it moved into its later stages.
As for Bonds’ grand jury testimony, Ruby was adamant that Bonds “answered every question,” and admitted “again and again” that he got the “cream” and the “clear” from Anderson and used them, believing they were substances to aid him such as flaxseed oil or arthritic ointments.
The two drugs were determined to be Balco-supplied drugs designed to avoid detection by anti-doping agencies.
“I know it doesn’t make a great story,” Ruby said. “It’s not a made-for-TV movie. But that’s what happened.” When Novitzky took the stand, he described the Balco investigation and how he first linked Bonds to Conte and Anderson through magazine pictures and articles. Despite the fact the taciturn agent is at the prosecution table during the Bonds trial, his testimony was not directed at his opinion about the former superstar’s truthfulness. Instead, he provided the groundwork for why the government called Bonds to the Balco grand jury and why it mattered to the investigation, an ingredient to proving the charges.
The closest Novitzky came to offering his opinion was telling jurors that when he reviewed Bonds’ grand jury testimony, it simply was “inconsistent with the facts gathered at that point” about his use of steroids and relationship with Anderson.
Anderson’s absence was already evident in the first day of trial, as prosecutors struggled to avoid references to material that Illston has barred because of Anderson’s refusal to testify. In fact, Illston had to stop at one point and instruct the jurors that they should not “speculate” or “draw inferences” about the fact Anderson is “unavailable” to testify.
In court papers, prosecutors urged Illston to reject Anderson’s bid to get out of jail during the trial, saying he’d damaged the trial and forced them to call witnesses who would otherwise not be needed, including other baseball players who were Anderson clients and would not be “embarrassed” to disclose their own steroid use in court.
— Story by Howard Mintz, San Jose Mercury News
